but i was just really live fascinated by the movie. it was great work on your part. >> it was dialogue. it is scripted dialogue that those actors inhabited. >> terrific. david o. russell, great to have you with us on "the ed show." i appreciate your time tonight. and good luck to you. thank you. great work. >> thank you, ed. >> you bet. >> thank you. >> that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. up next, tonight's premier "hubris: selling the iraq war," narrated by rachel maddow. good evening. thanks for being with us tonight. this is a joint resolution of congress. it was passed in 1964. the signatures here, the speaker of the house of representatives, the president of the senate, and down here, the big one, that is the signature of the president of the united states. this resolution passed on a friday. the tuesday before the president had gone on tv in a live late-night urgent broadcast. >> my fellow americans. >> and in that broadcast, he said the united states navy had come under attack. he said there had been open aggression on the high seas

against the united states of america. the result was the gulf of tonkin resolution. it passed in the house unanimously. it passed in the senate 88-2. it turns out we got snookered. it did not happen the way they said it happened. the way they so urgently and sternly informed it had happened. but it would be seven years before this was repealed. and by then the escalation that this levered us into had already become the longest yet war in u.s. history. a war that defined an era that indelibly tattooed the generation of political leaders who made it happen or who did not stop it from happening. we say that vietnam changed our politics forever. but less than 40 years after this, again, a campaign directed at the highest levels of government to get us to agree to a war based on something that did not happen the way they said it happened. it was a month's long campaign in 2002 and 2003, and it worked. it's a decade now since it worked, since they got that war.

how did it work? why did it work? and could it work again? nbc news investigative correspondent michael isikoff and mother jones's david corn, msnbc contributor co-authored a book called "hubris" that detailed exactly how that war was sold to the american people. what you are about to see tonight is based on their reporting. we are still too close to all of this in time to know if what some say was the biggest foreign policy deception and disaster in modern u.s. history will define its generation of leaders too. whether this is going to be the first line in the obituaries of the men and women who caused that war. but if what we went through ten years ago did not change us as a country, if we do not understand what happened and adapt as a country to resist it, then history says we are doomed to repeat it again. here is what happened.

the people of the united states and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. >> my belief is we will in fact be greeted as liberators. >> there is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be u.s. taxpayer money, and i starts with the assets of the iraqi people. >> you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have. >> the search is under way for those who are behind these evil

acts. i have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. we will make no distinction between the terrorist who committed these acts and those who harbor them. >> what weighed on many of us is the 9/11 attack revealed major vulnerabilities. iraq had been a big problem even before 9/11, and became even bigger and more urgent in light of 9/11. >> america's greatest national

security failure since pearl harbor hurls its leaders into a massive national security response. >> and the people who knock these buildings down will hear all of us soon. >> osama bin laden and his al qaeda terrorist network are the immediate target, but the day after the attacks, president george w. bush comes to the white house situation room and orders counterterrorism director richard clark to look into an iraq connection. >> when i said mr. president, we will do that of course. but we've done it before and rather recently. and the answer has always been no. and it's likely to be no this time. he didn't like that answer. and he got mad. >> i was in the room during that time, and he was very adamant about perhaps seeing whether or not iraq could conduct such an operation against the united states. i was surprised when the president left the room. i said i believe wolfowitz got

to him. >> paul wolfowitz, bush's secretary of defense has had saddam on his personal enemies list for two decades. >> every time he survives something, he sends the message to his enemies i outlast my enemies. and if you are on the wrong list when i'm still around, you'll be in trouble. >> paul wolfowitz would become convinced that if we looked strongly enough, if we look closely enough, we'd find the hand of saddam hussein behind virtually every terrorist attack on the united states. >> even before 9/11, wolfowitz and undersecretary of defense douglas fife had been driving administration policy on iraq. >> some of us believed that you will have a saddam hussein problem forever unless you get rid of him. >> the meeting notes from the afternoon of 9/11 show donald rumsfeld tasking a top aide to

find the best info fast good enough to hit saddam hussein. he asks the aide to get evidence from wolfowitz of a saddam connection with ubl, osama bin laden. >> we all looked at each other like what are they talking about? who the hell -- saddam hussein? bipartisanship bin laden hates him. he is a heretic. there is no connection between saddam hussein and al qaeda. >> the word goes out to the cia, fbi, and all the intelligence services -- find the connection. first, though, the war on terror goes to afghanistan to capture or kill osama bin laden and destroy the taliban regime that supports al qaeda. by november, the enemy is on the run, forced to flee into the mountains and across the boarder

to pakistan. but while bin laden remains at large, washington's attention turns to iraq, to saddam. >> i think the united states since desert storm has always had a various planning with respect to iraq. [ siren ] >> operation desert storm. also known as the first gulf war. in 1991 following iraq's invasion of kuwait, a u.s.-led coalition of 34 countries drives saddam's forces out of kuwait and decimates the iraqi army in six weeks. but despite that overwhelming victory, president george h.w. bush faces criticism at home for not going all the way to baghdad to rid the world of saddam hussein. >> i made very, very clear from day one that it was not an objective of the coalition to get saddam hussein out of there. by force.

>> dick cheney, his defense secretary at the time, supports the first president bush's restraint. >> i think we got it right. conversations i had with leaders in the region afterwards, they were concerned that we not get into a position where we were an imperialist power willy-nilly moving into capitalism in that part of the world. >> after the gulf wore, bush send planes to provide air cover for vulnerable populations in northern and southern iraq. the u.n. security council imposes harsh sanctions and sends in weapons inspectors to dig deeply for iraqi wmd capabilities, weapons of mass destruction. >> this went on for years. at a certain point, unbeknownst to the weapons inspectors or anyone else over in iraq, it turns out we pretty much accounted for the full system, but we didn't know that.

>> in 1998, saddam refuses to cooperate further, and the united nations pulls out the weapons inspectors. saddam virtually seals iraq off from the west. in a 1998 letter to president clinton, paul wolfowitz, donald rumsfeld, and other leading neo conservatives urge the president to take action to remove saddam's regime from power. the neo cons align with annish bain iraqi expatriate named chalabi. he heads the iraqi national congress, a group of emigres and defectors lobbying to get rid of saddam. >> i say to you now the opposition is united in its aim of getting rid of saddam and establishing democracy in iraq. >> he was a very impressive and effective spokesman for the iraqi opposition to saddam.

>> a very slick operator who was skillful enough to convey the idea that he could step in as a new leader of iraq. but that was totally divorced from realities on the ground. >> i george walker bush do solemnly swear -- >> when george w. bush is sworn in january 2001, rumsfeld, wolfowitz and fife take the reins of defense department policy. vice president cheney has reversed course and now supports regime change in iraq. motive awaits opportunity. and for the bush administration, 9/11 provides it. this is so sick! i can't believe your mom let you take her car out. this is awesome! whoooo! you're crazy.

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iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward america and to support terror. this is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

states like these and their terrorist allies cute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. >> when i heard the axis of evil speech, i thought, well, something is going to happen. >> the idea was take actions after 9/11 that would so shock state supporters of terrorism around the world that we might be able to get them to change their policies regarding support for terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. >> general franks is both a warrior but also a wise and inspiring commander. >> a declassified memo from november 2001 reveals that donald rumsfeld met as early as then with centcom commander general tommy franks to review plans for the decapitation of the iraqi government. they discuss ideas of how to start a war. one suggestion is to create a dispute over wmd inspections. >> this is a regime that agreed

to international inspections, then kicked out the inspectors. >> 9/11 made it politically possible for the first time to persuade the american people to break a tradition of not launching offensive wars. >> the pressure to find evidence falls heavily on all 15 u.s. intelligence agencies. >> the extremely strong policy wind that was blowing at the time and that everyone in government corridors felt made it absolutely clear what was preferred and what was not preferred. >> atta, mohamud atta, leader of 9/11's al qaeda. from prague comes a photograph allegedly showing mohamud atta meeting with a high-ranking iraqi intelligence officer. the photograph of the supposed meeting is never made publicly available.

>> mohamud atta was a slight guy barely what, 5'5", 5'6" and skinny. the guy in the photograph was muscular and thick and had a neck the size of two of my necks. that's not mohamed atta on the photograph. but send to it the lab any wayway. in my mind, it's put to bed. >> event without defin sieve evidence. >> it's pretty well confirm head did go to prague and meet with a senior official of the iraqi intelligence service last april. >> i was sitting in my den at home in washington, d.c., and i remember looking at the tv screen going what did i just hear? and i first time in my life, i actually threw something at the television. because i couldn't believe what i had just heard. >> over and over again, the vice president for years would say we had a report of this meeting.

it's true. there was a report. and nobody believed it. that's what they didn't add. >> we clearly know that -- >> in a pbs interview on "the news hour with jim lehrer", national security adviser condoleezza rice reveals with certainty more evidence of saddam's supposed terrorist link. >> we know too that several of the detainees, in particular some high-ranking detainees have said that iraq provided some training to al qaeda in chemical weapons development. >> the key high-ranking detainee rice is referring to is an al qaeda commander named ibn al sheik al libbi. >> he is at first interrogated by the fbi using standard interrogation deck techniques. but the cia wants more. they seize control of him.

they send him to egypt where he is rendered and turned over to one of the most brutal intelligence services in the world. >> this is al libbi years later. in a libyan prison being visited by his family. this video was recently located by michael isikoff. >> within weeks of his interrogation in egypt, al libbi coughs up this story that he hadn't told the fbi before that saddam was training al qaeda in chemical and biological weapons. it's the single most frightening story that could have been told post- 9/11. >> almost from the outset, the intelligence community has doubts about the claim. a 2002 cia report states that questions persist about al libbi's forthrightness and truthfulness, and that in some instances he seems to have fabricated information. after the infact, al libi will reimportacant the story that wa

extracted by egypt's brutal interrogation. >> at the time he said two different things at two different times, and we will tell the policy consumers and other analysts in the community both stories. you choose to believe what you choose to believe. but i don't know which one is accurate. >> the administration chooses to believe the connection. >> we've learned that iraq has trained al qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases. >> right up to the war and beyond, it remains a key administration argument for war. and the public largely trusts it to be true. >> if you look at all the key pieces of evidence that they presented publicly at the time on every single one of them not only was there doubt, there was debate within the intelligence agencies of the u.s. government. >> the intelligence community assessed that saddam hussein was

building a mobile biological weapons capability to avoid detection by the u.s. and its allies. and the assessment was based almost entirely on one source from the german government, a source named curveball. >> his real name as far as they know is rafid ahmed marwan, an iraqi engineer who makes his way to germany and tells german intelligence and says he worked in saddam's weapons labs used to make weapons of mass destruction. >> curveball was known to be a fabricator. he could not be relied upon. his intelligence always had been sort of stamped, you know, do not -- do not disseminate. this is useless. >> curveball is a lone and seriously suspect source, and u.s. intelligence agencies rely solely on german reports. they never actually question him themselves. in this 2011 interview with britain's newspaper "the guardian", the man called

curveball confirms the lies of his pre-war claims. . >> this particular issue about the supposed mobile labs was mishandled all the way around. certainly by the intelligence community in terms of how it was assessed, and then became the very heart of the whole case about unconventional weapons. >> with dubious evidence like that, the white house will present its case for war. lobsterfest is the king of all promotions. there's nothing like our grilled lobster and lobster tacos. the bar harbor bake is really worth trying. [ male announcer ] get more during red lobster's lobsterfest. with the year's largest selection of mouth-watering lobster entrees. like our delicious lobster lover's dream,

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weapons of mass destruction. there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. >> i had a seat at the stage next to the lectern where he was speaking. and i literally bolted at that. >> with our help, a liberated iraq can be a great nation once again. >> vice president dick cheney's speech to veterans of foreign wars is the opening salvo to sell to the american people what white house insiders call "the product." . >> thank you very much. >> it was a shock. it was a total shock. i couldn't believe the vice president was saying this. and doing work with the cia on iraq wmd, through all the briefs i heard at langley, i never saw one piece of credible evidence that there was an ongoing program. and that's when i began to believe they're getting serious about this. they want to go into iraq. >> two weeks after the speech, cheney again makes his case on national television. >> what we know is just bits and

pieces we gather through the intelligence system. but we do know with absolute certainty he is using his procurement system to acquire what he needs in order to build the uranium enrichment program. >> saddam and nukes, absolute certainty. a terrifying prospect based on the cia's discovery that iraq is attempting to purchase 60,000 aluminum tubes. some analysts become convinced the tubes are intended to be used in centrifuges to make uranium for nuclear weapons. soon after the discovery, the department of energy gets hold of the actual tubes and asks engineering professor houston wood, an expert on gas centrifuges to evaluate them. >> from the information they gave me, it took me about 15 minutes to come to the conclusion that these tubes could not be used for gas centrifuges. they're too thick. they're too heavy.

>> the energy department concludes that the tubes are for conventional rockets, not for nuclear weapons. but cia analysts stick to their position that the tubes are for centrifuges, and the white house embraces that position. administration sources leak the disputed findings to "the new york times" in september 2002. the paper runs its sensational scoop on the front page. >> this is -- >> within hours, dick cheney is quoting that scoop as fact on "meet the press." >> it's now public that in fact he has been seeking to acquire and we have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge. >> i call my friends in oakridge, and i said are these the same tubes that we were talking about last year? and they said yes. i said i thought we put that to rest a year ago. >> four days later, commemorating the first

anniversary of 9/11, president george w. bush repeats the claim at the united nations. >> iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. >> i think the bush administration took a great deal of satisfaction in being able to cite the supposedly liberal "new york times" in making their case for it. >> absent the aluminum tubes, most of the community believes that there is no sufficient evidence to assess that there is a nuclear program. >> from the african country of niger comes another nuclear alarm. informs the cia that it has the text of a contract between iraq and niger for saddam to purchase 500 metric tons of yellowcake, a form of uranium suitable for nuclear weapons. >> they were rather extensive

written documents about the ways in which iraq was negotiating to buy very significant amounts of uranium ore. but the state department expressed how dubious they were about these documents and the likelihood that they were forged. >> at the time no one from u.s. intelligence had actually laid eyes on the documents, and they will ultimately turn out to be forgeries. but when a dia report on the yellowcake claim is presented to dick cheney, he orders the cia to dig deeper. the agency sends to niger a veteran diplomat with extensive experience in africa, former ambassador joseph wilson. >> i knew the foreign minister who was subsequently the prime minister. i knew the minister of mines. it did not happen. it could not have happened. just because of the nature of uranium mining operations in francophone, africa, the french maintained control. >> the most important thing to know about the yellowcake story is that the cia never believed it.

>> but even as speculation, it is enough for administration officials to move ahead with plans to take out saddam. national security adviser condoleezza rice goes on cnn to alert the nation. >> the problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapon. but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. >> what i was hearing and what i knew did not jive. i asked one time at langley am i crazy or is there no credible evidence of an ongoing program? and i had a former deputy director of the cia say to me you're not crazy. >> but there are administration voices urging caution. secretary of state colin powell and his senior staff who unlike their counterparts at defense are all former military men, they press to give a chance for sanctions to work, for inspections to keep saddam in check. >> the concern was we hadn't

finished in afghanistan, and if we went to war in iraq, we would take the emphasis off afghanistan, which is subsequently exactly what happened. >> the administration has saddam squarely in its sights. the time has come to persuade congress to squeeze the trigger. >> one of the most serious responsibilities the congress has is to cast a vote to send a young man or woman to war to die. ash card from capital one... boris earns unlimited rewards for his small business. can i get the smith contract, please? thank you. that's three new paper shredders. [ boris ] put 'em on my spark card. [ garth ] boris' small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase every day. great businesses deserve unlimited rewards. read back the chicken's testimony, please. "buk, buk, bukka!" [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase every day. told you i'd get half. what's in your wallet?

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i'm milissa rehberger. here is what is happening. nike and oakley are distancing themselves from troubled olympic athlete oscar pistorius. pistorius is charged with killing his girlfriend. burger king was the target of a twitter hacking earlier. one of the fraudulent tweets said the company had been sold to mcdonald's. and in russia, pieces of the meteor that crashed to earth last week are a hot commodity. according to some estimates, fragments to sell for $2200 per

gram. that is about 40 times the price of gold. back to "hubris." . with congress back from its summer recess, administration leaders prepare to make their case to invade iraq to eliminate saddam. inside the white house, paul wolfowitz's deputy, undersecretary defense douglas fife, an iraq hawk like his boss, presents a slide show to national security officials that is full of questionable assertions. >> of all the places where intelligence was being manipulated in the bush administration, the fife shop was the key place. >> there was a debate about how one characterizes the relationship between iraq and al qaeda. nobody made the argument that there was no relationship between iraq and al qaeda. >> i want to thank the --

>> the administration deploys its biggest guns to push congressional leaders for quick passage of a resolution to authorize the president to take military action. >> it's important signal for the world to see that this country is united in our resolve to deal with threats that we face. >> the president made the point that there was an urgency to taking action, that it couldn't wait. he got very animated. he used uncharacteristically profanity and used the middle fingerer to demonstrate saddam hussein's disdain for the united states and for him personally. >> a number of members of congress, mostly democrats, remain unconvinced. >> i'm still very skeptical about saddam hussein's intent and position. nothing has changed the basis for that skepticism. >> the senate intelligence committee requests a national intelligence estimate, a comprehensive summary of the evidence.

nies are routinely delivered on intelligence issues, yet on this gravest of matter, none yet exists. in three weeks, the cia pulls together what normally takes months. it is delivered just seven days before the congressional vote. >> aluminum tubes are interesting, and i know there is controversy associated with it. >> in my judgment, the cia director george tenet had become a political spokesperson for the administration, and that is not the role of the cia. he was too often towing the line that the administration wanted him to tow. >> we think we have stumbled on to one avenue of a nuclear weapons program. >> there is no question that there were erroneous judgments in that national intelligence estimate. the purpose was to sell the policy initiative, which was to go to war against iraq. >> the 90-page classified nie asserts that saddam is actively pursuing his wmd program. it sites the debatable intelligence on aluminum tubes, the yellowcake uranium purchase, and mobile weapons labs.

but deep inside that thick document are strongly-worded dissents that argue the evidence is weak, even wrong. >> the nie is sent over to congress. it's kept in a classified vault. and as far as we can tell, only about a half a dozen senators actually read it. had they done so, they would have seen that it was filled with dissents. >> if i had read the national intelligence estimate on iraq, i probably would have been -- have done myself a favor by being better informed on the intelligence rather than listening to the administration. >> as a congressional resolution to authorize war is put to a vote, most republicans stand solidly behind president bush. >> the forces of freedom are on the march and terrorists will find no safe harbor in this world. >> democrats are deeply divided. >> it is wrong for congress to declare war against iraq now before we have exhausted the

alternatives. >> i urge senators to go down on the capitol mall and look at the vietnam memorial. >> we were two months out from an election, and no one republican, democrat, independent ever wants to be viewed as weak on national security. >> i will vote to give the president the authority he needs. >> the threat of saddam hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real. >> it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our president, and we say to him use these powers wisely and as a last resort. >> in my heart, i knew that a no to the authority for the president was the right vote, but yet i was not strong enough to vote my conscience. >> joint resolution is passed without objection. >> the vote is overwhelming. the margin is more than 3-1 in the senate. 2-1 in the house. the president is officially given a free hand. >> the days of iraq acting as an

outlaw state are coming to an end. >> powell walked into my office, and without so much as a fair three thieve well, he walked over to the window and said i wonder what will happen when we put 500 troops into the iraq and come the country from one end to the other and find nothing. and he turned around and walked back into his office. and i wrote that down on my calendar as close to verbatim as i could, because i thought that was a profound statement comes from the former joint chiefs of staff. >> the march to war is started and the job is given to colin powell. >> anybody who says this was an intelligence-driven war i believe is mistaken, end, stop. [ male announcer ] i've seen incredible things. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel,

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military is headed to the gulf. congress is on board, as are british prime minister tony blair and most of the mainstream media. the stage is set for war. a new u.n. resolution has forced iraq to submit to tough new arms inspections. but president bush is growing impatient. the defense department tells him that if he is going to war, he's got to do it before the blistering desert summer. >> we were moving along the path of getting a good inspection going that would probably come to fruition one way or the other, but once you start military forces flowing to the extent that we did for iraq, it's hard to pull them back. >> as the inevitable moves closer, president bush reargues the case and ups the ante with 16 infamous words in a state of the union address. >> the british government has

learned that saddam hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from africa. >> that would be yellowcake, again. but by referring to a six-month-old british white paper, the president does an end-run around a claim discredited by his own intelligence service. >> it wasn't a matter of lying about this or lying about that, but rather through the artistry of speech writers and case presenters, conveying an impression to the american people that certain things were true. >> it's a real sleight of hand. and i think it's kind to call that disengenous. >> on the heels of the president's speech, the administration plays its ultimate trump card. it tasks colin powell, its most public trusted face, its most reluctant warrior to make the case against saddam hussein at the united nations. he is given a week to pull that presentation together. >> he walked into my office with

a sheaf of papers in my hand and he threw them down on the desk and said that's the script of my presentation at the united nations. it came from the vice president's office. it was junk. it was pure junk. i was in charge of putting it together. >> powell and wilkerson tear up the original 48-page script and start over with a team from the state department and cia. director george tenet suggests they base their presentation on the national intelligence estimate, which unbeknownst to powell is a deeply flawed document. still, he is wary. >> we went into a room. he slammed the door shut. he said "sit down." and he sat down. we were the only two people in the room. he looked at me and said this [ bleep ] of contacts with al qaeda has got to be taken out. it's [ bleep ]. and i said i agree with you. let's take it out. done.

within a half an hour, tenet comes in and explosively tells about this high level al qaeda operative who has been interrogated and admitted to these contacts. whoa. and we put it back in. >> that would be the dubious confession extracted from ibnal sheik all libbi. >> both of us convinced ourselves if the intelligence community believed what they were presenting, then we had to believe it because they were the experts. >> i wrote parts of this speech, what i saw over the course of week, up until the night before he gave that speech, and into the early morning is does this fit? is this compelling? who can pick a hole in this? i'm going to stand in front of a billion people. what i say better be the clearest and most credible information we have. >> on february 5th, 2003, the moment of truth arrives.

>> the 4,701st meeting of the security council is called to order. >> the world witnesses colin powell deliver the ultimate argument for war against iraq. >> what we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. i will cite some examples, and these are from human sources. >> i was at cia headquarters, and all of us sort of gathered around the tv in the office to watch his speech live from the u.n. >> we have firsthand scriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails. >> those would be descriptions by the discredited witness curveball. >> as he is talking about this and showing vials of white powder and so forth, i turned to a woman next to me who had followed this whole case of curveball much more closely than i, i said what the hell is going on? and my colleague said i don't know. i don't know what is going on.

what is this? >> we did not know he was in germany. we did not know he had a code name, curveball. we did not know that no u.s. intelligence personnel had ever interrogated him. >> based on defector information in ever interrogated him. >> based on intelligence, saddam hussein had a massive clandestine program that developed uranium. >> that would be the information provided, by the head of the iraqi national congress. the self-appointed ex-patriot iraqi shadow government. >> we talked to shalabbi on multiple occasions, and we saw that they were hyping the type of information they put out. >> he is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire from 11 different countries, even after

inspections resumed. >> yet again, the aluminum tubes. >> i was incredibly disappointed when he brought out comments about the aluminum tubes. i felt betrayed as an american and scientist. >> i can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how iraq provided training in these weapons to al-qaeda. fortunately, this operative is now detained. and he has told his story. >> powell is referring to alibbi, the same detainee the cia labelled a fabricator. it takes 90 minutes to run through the persuauave litany. >> there is too much certitude

in the speech, that is not secretary powell, that is on us. >> secretary of state powell set aside his personal misgivings and staked his global reputation for integrity, on this one moment, selling the case for war. >> although nobody else from the state department team intentionally lied, we did participate in a hoax. i have a cold, and i took nyquil, but i'm still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth!

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danger. our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. >> the conquest goes quickly, and just as quickly, a country liberated from a dictator dissolves, an administration eager to go to war fails disastrously to plan for the aftermath. and after 18 months of scouring the country, the truth about saddam hussein's weapons of mass destruction is finally revealed. >> there are no weapons of mass destruction, and have not been for a long time. >> the new chief found out they got rid of the weapons of mass destruction after the first gulf war. >> i was supposed to find truth. i did not fail to find wmd.

i succeeded in finding the tr h truth. >> you're telling us in addition to having no wmd stocks before the war for the reasons you gave, saddam chose not to have those weapons? is that correct? >> that is correct. >> those are stunning statements. >> it was a terrible mistake. the cia had said we would find stock piles that we didn't find. it was a disaster. >> you believed it was true at the time? in >> yes, so did they, there were a lot of people in the community that didn't realize the information was not as solid as was presented to me. >> it is not just an intelligence failure, it is a failure to the highest levels of the administration. george w. bush and cheney would have gone to war with iraq and gone to war with saddam hussein even if there was not any intelligence at all.

>> it is at worst, lies and deception. it is at best, incompetence and lack of understanding. >> a lot of people who on purpose used extreme rhetoric to push support for the war, there have been no consequences for them. >> we sit here some eight years later, 4,000 americans lost their lives. maybe 100,000 iraqis lost their lives. it cost about a trillion dollars. was it worth it? did you give the right advice? >> i think i did. if you look back at the proposition we faced after 9/11, with respect to saddam hussein we were very concerned about the prospects of terrorists like the 9/11 crowd acquiring weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons they could use on the united states. >> there is no question the media didn't do its job during the run-up to the iraq war. far too often, the press simply

accepted these sweeping assertions by the highest officials in the government, without looking for the hard evidence to support it. >> was more concerned about the politics of my decision, rather than what is right, and what is wrong. >> i have prayed to god many times that he would forgive me for sending his children to die in a war that never had to happen. was there ever any consideration of apologizing to the american people? >> i mean, apologizing would basically say the decision was a wrong decision. and i don't believe it was a wrong decision.